Learning Language From Mestru

"For them, Kannada is a foreign tongue, but they are mastering it with some difficulty and a lot of determination. And Mestru says it is foreign nationals who are more disciplined when it comes to speaking Kannada Mestru is B V Raghavan, Bangalore’s most well-known Kannada teacher — and he should know best, for he has been teaching Kannada without a break on weekends, since 1973"

    Raghavan has so far taught Kannada to hundreds of Americans, Germans, French, Russian and British who stay in Bangalore. For Lyudov Kulikovich, 31, learning Kannada became necessary as her English, with a Russian accent, was not understood by many English-speaking Bangaloreans.
    “Whenever I asked for directions, the usual reply was, ‘Can you speak in English?’ Nothing can be more embarrassing. Then I decided to learn Kannada and attended classes for three months last year. Though I cannot speak well, I understand conversations in Kannada, which is what I required,” says Kulikovich. She is working in an outsourcing company here and thinks English alone cannot save a foreign national in Bangalore. Especially when they take a trip to the outskirts.
    According to her, it is easy to understand the culture of a place by understanding the regional language spoken. “I watched Kannada movie Mungaru Male, and could understand it within the context because I made efforts to learn the language. I recognize the vegetables by their names in Kannada, which makes buying easy,” she added. “Nange Kannada swalpa swalpa baratthe,” says Kovila C, 28, a Mauritius national living in Bangalore for over seven years now. Learning Kannada was a choice she made. “I love learning languages. I have learnt Tamil and Hindi, which helped me learn Kannada. There are striking similarities among these Dravidian languages, which have their origin in Sanskrit. I travel across Karnataka just out of passion for tourism and my learning of Kannada has helped while conversing with non-English speakers,” says Kovila. Kovila is working for the French Consulate here.